Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the website 2steppin.com, and has been reprinted here with permission. This comprehensive look at race relations in country music was written prior to the rise of Darius Rucker as a hitmaker. The 9513 would love to hear your comments about race in country music today, and about […]

Texas country rocker Kevin Fowler trades Bambi for Budweiser, hunting for Heineken and ammo for Amstel on his new single “Beer Season,” a catchy, silly song that is refreshingly fun for the sake of being fun. Unlike current chart-topping “good time” songs that are so calculated and slickly produced (think Craig Morgan’s “Bonfire” or Brooks […]

The 2009 International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductees are The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and The Dillards. Tiffany, an ’80s pop star, told The Huntsville Times that she hopes to have a country project together by the end of the year. “I’ve had success after 20 years, and my fans have really been supportive of […]

Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood will return as hosts for the three-hour broadcast of the CMA Awards on Nov. 11. Beginning Sept. 20, the Grand Ole Opry will bring back its Country Classics series for an eight-week run. Quick, what’s the last song you heard? Jack Ingram met his goal of 215 interviews to officially […]

So, did you hear Brooks & Dunn are splitting up? The duo will release #1’s…and then some next month and take a farewell tour, The Last Rodeo Tour, in 2010. Your take: As a duo, is Brooks & Dunn’s Hall of Fame inclusion a forgone conclusion? Country Universe listed 10 essential tracks and two hidden […]

Thus far, the thrust of the Forgotten Artists series has been artists whose salad days occurred before 1980. While Brady tells me that many of the articles have received a lot of hits, relatively few comments have been left. I suspect that this is because few of the readers actually recall the artists of whom […]

Matraca Berg looks like a country singer. She’s slim and pretty. When she speaks, it’s with a strong Kentucky drawl. The boys would gush over her and the girls would all want to be her. But that’s not what Berg is. She’s a songwriter—and a good one at that. So good, that she was picked […]

Clint Black couldn’t fill Trace Adkins‘ shoes and was fired on Celebrity Apprentice last night, just shy of earning a spot in the top four. Josh Gracin added a new song to his MySpace titled “Enough,” and in a blog post he mentions that it’s his first project without Lyric Street. (via CountryMusicIsLove) Jason Michael […]

Yesterday morning, Billy Bob Thorton and his band, The Boxmasters, went to an interview in Toronto, Canada, except Thorton didn’t appear to be coherent when host Jian Ghomeshi began asking him questions. Apparently Thorton was perturbed that Ghomeshi briefly mentioned his acting career when he introduced the band. EW.com has video of the bizarre interview. […]

The new Lifetime movie Northern Lights, which debuts on Saturday, is receiving a lot of publicity from the alleged affair between the film’s two co-stars, LeAnn Rimes and actor Eddie Cibrian. Us Weekly broke the story in the latest issue, while Rimes’ asks for your support during this difficult time and Cibrian casts the allegations […]